Yankees rough up David Price, beat Tigers, 8-4

The Yankees' Jacoby Ellsbury, right, signals safe after stealing second base in the third inning in Detroit, Wednesday.

DETROIT – Jacoby Ellsbury had started the carousel, a stunning string of nine straight hits by the Yankees – against Tigers lefty David Price no less – that fueled an epic, eight-run third inning.

During the moment, even Ellsbury hadn’t realized that every Yankee in the lineup had contributed to Wednesday night’s historic hit parade at Comerica Park.

“I knew we were doing pretty well,” said Ellsbury, who was informed by hitting coach Kevin Long. “But I didn’t know we’d done something like that.”

There wasn’t a home run in the bunch, though the Yankees gladly grinded their way to an 8-4 victory before 40,876 fans – a win that put manager Joe Girardi’s club in position to win an important series against a fellow contender.

Winners of six of their last seven games, the Yanks moved within 2.5 games of Seattle for the final AL wild card spot, while Detroit fell to 1.5 behind the Mariners.

But the route to Wednesday’s win against Price was admittedly “surprising,” said Brett Gardner. “As good as he is, we just had some things go our way.”

From leadoff man Ellsbury to No. 9 hitting Francisco Cervelli, the Yankees collected nine straight hits for the first time in an AL game since Detroit did it in 1996. The defending NL champion Cardinals did it last season.

All eight runs were charged to Price (12-10), a gift for Yankees right-hander Shane Greene (4-1), who yielded two runs over seven innings.

“Sometimes you’re thinking, ‘Hurry up, I want to get back out there,’ “ said Greene, the recipient of the Yankees’ biggest inning of the year. “But it’s nice.”

“We were lucky we found some holes,” Derek Jeter said. “Price is as good as anyone in baseball. We were fortunate, but we needed it. That’s the only inning we scored but it was a big inning for us.”

Two straight hits shy of the MLB one-inning record, the Yanks’ third-inning march was nearly interrupted early as Price picked off Ellsbury after his leadoff single.

But Ellsbury kept gunning for second base and slid safely ahead of first baseman Miguel Cabrera’s late, wide throw. Jeter followed by slashing an RBI double to right for a 1-0 lead and the conga line was underway.

Martin Prado lined a single to left, Mark Teixeira drove an opposite-field, RBI double to right, and then the Yankees went into a station-to-station mode.

Carlos Beltran’s drive to right skipped against the right field wall for an RBI single, causing Teixeira to stop at third – until designated hitter Brian McCann drove him in with a line single to center.

After Chase Headley grounded a single to left that loaded the bases, Brett Gardner tapped a well-place grounder to deep short that went for an RBI infield hit.

And when Cervelli completed the hit string with a groundball RBI single through the left side, Price’s night was finished but the Yanks weren’t through scoring.

Ellsbury and Jeter delivered sacrifice flies against lefty reliever Blaine Hardy for an 8-0 lead, keeping the Yanks a perfect 8-for-8 with runners in scoring position until Prado’s groundout ended the epic frame.

Cervelli had tapped into a double play with the bases loaded to end the second inning.

“Some well-placed balls – they put some good at-bats on (Price),” Girardi said of the third inning. “And guys kept the line moving.”

And it was product of a somewhat re-jiggered lineup by manager Joe Girardi, who batted Prado third and kept Ellsbury – who had three homers in his previous two games - in the leadoff spot despite Gardner’s return.

Girardi batted Gardner eighth on Wednesday, though it had more to do with Gardner being a career 2-for-20 against Price than anything else.

Girardi has mostly employed a 1-2-3 of Gardner, Jeter and Ellsbury atop his order. “I’m not saying you won’t see those guys together again,” Girardi said. But when asked if Ellsbury might see more time at leadoff through September, Girardi was non-committal.

“Let’s just see where we go,” Girardi said. “We’ll worry about today.”

Jeter honored

Playing his final regular season series in his home state of Michigan, Jeter was uniquely honored in a pregame ceremony Wednesday.

Along with a $5,000 check to Jeter’s Turn 2 Foundation and two seats from old Tiger Stadium, the Tigers presented Jeter with a tri-panel portrait of the Yankees captain playing at his high school field in Kalamazoo, Tiger Stadium and Comerica Park. Vials of dirt from each park were included.